How to know the Indian Waders. 9

as the " great locust-bird. " In captivity both this and the
next species are very quiet and harmless, unlike many of
these large waders, and they are good birds to have about
one's compound, being harmless to plants, and enemies
to small vermin, including mice and snakes.

The Black Stork.

Ciconia nigra.—BLANFORD, Faun, Brit. Ind. Birds;
Vol. IV, p. 369.

VERNACULAR NAME.—Surmai, Hind.

This bird is not so black as it is painted by its name,
being bronze-green with a white belly and red legs and bill.
The skin round the eye is also red, the eye itself being dark.

Young birds are dark dull brown where th? old ones are
bronze-green.

This species has much the same range and habits as 'she
White Stork and is of about the same size and form; but
it goes further East than its ally, occurring in China, while
the White Stork is represented in remote Eastern Asia by
Boyce's Stork (Ciconia boyciana), which is also white
with black quills, but bigger and with a black beak and
white eyes, the latter surrounded by a red skin, thus
reversing the colour of our White Stork's features.

The Black Stork does not breed with us, but is only a
winter migrant, and in its breeding haunts it is shy and
avoids the neighbourhood of man.

Although they are not so numerous in India as the smaller
species to be noticed after them, the giants of our
Storks, the Adjutant, Marabout, and Jabiru, are never-
theless on the whole better known to the general public,
being menagerie and picture-book birds. The Adjutant
and Marabout are very closely related, but the Jabiru has
no near kinsmen here, and the two relatives he does pos-
sess f<are not near relations—their relationship is only,